Beware! Cheap ride from IGI can turn into nightmare

TNN | Jul 23, 2019, 05.19 AM IST

NEW DELHI: Police have arrested three Meerut-based criminals for having intercepted a Canadian national, a pilot with Indigo Airlines, from outside Indira Gandhi International Airport and escorted him away, not only to rob him of his valuables but also to coerce him into withdrawing more money from an ATM.

Police identified the three arrested men as Mohammed Mehraj Salmani, Mohammed Asif and Mohammed Farman. While Salmani is from Fatehullahpur village in Meerut, the other two live in Shahjahanpur village. They had accosted Mehndi Ghanzanfani, the pilot, on the intervening night of July 12-13.

Ghanzanfani had arrived from Kolkata and was looking for his company cab that was supposed to pick him. He walked towards the city side on the main road near Delhi Metro station’s gate no 2 and began talking with cab drivers. A person spoke to him in Hindi and offered to take him in his taxi to his company cab for Rs 100.

The pilot got in the offered taxi to find some men already sitting inside. They forcibly divested him of whatever he had in his wallet and took his debit cards to withdraw cash. They then dumped him on the Mahipalpur flyover and fled with around Rs 1.3 lakh cash. The victim managed to note a portion of the taxi’s licence plate: ZB0477.

An FIR was filed and two special teams led by ACPs Ramesh Chand and Abhishek Gupta were formed under DCP (airport) Sanjay Bhatia. While inspector Narpal Singh’s team started to collect and study CCTV footage from different routes, inspector Adesh’s team worked on generating technical intelligence.

“The teams started a search for the suspect vehicle using CCTV footage and the digits provided by the complainant,” DCP Bhatia told TOI. They found a vehicle DL 1ZB 04777, a cab, but fuller investigation determined the robbers had faked the number and this cab’s owner was clueless about the robbery.

The cops then used advanced technical surveillance and prepared an electronic route based on mobile locations and CCTV footage taken by the cab to the ATM and back. They were then able to zero in on Salmani and raided his house.

However, it turned out that since July 16, Salmani and his accomplices were in UP police custody after being arrested by Sahibabad police. The cops reached the Sahibabad court and interrogated the trio and arrested them after their involvement in the pilot case was established.

Police recovered the Swift Dzire car and the masks used in the robbery, two fake number plates and the pilot’s ATM card. Their interrogation revealed that the men had divided the booty into four portions, the last to pay the loan instalment on the Dzire that they used in crimes. They drove around the airport and other areas looking for “seemingly wealthy” customers. They made their victims sit in the middle with a “co-passenger” on either side. They then held them at gunpoint and robbed them before letting them out of the car at isolated spots.

The trio used the child lock of the car to prevent the victims opening the door from inside to escape. The window pane controls at the rear were also disabled to stop the victim from raising an alarm. In all their crimes, the men took the victims to an ATM and made them withdraw cash, knowing well that people nowadays do not carry large amounts of cash. Salmani, alias Boss, headed the gang. He drives a cab for an app-based taxi service, but turns robber at night to make a quick buck.